Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentations, which give an insight into what is happening. I am curious about the training of staff in the Irish Prison Service, which was mentioned earlier. Do they get special training to deal with ethnic minorities such as Travellers? Is there a special training course or do staff undergo some sort of a process like that?

There were some notable comments about mental health treatment waiting lists, which are very long. We have many prisoners coming in for a short period, such as a few months, and the chances of them having their mental health needs attended to are small. Maybe some of them experience psychosis. Are we able to address any of those cases in an emergency scenario? The waiting lists are so long I am just not sure how we could deal with such cases.

I was very interested to hear about the equine centre in Castlerea. I am involved with the horse projects in Finglas and Ballymun. I assume that is open to all prisoners and Travellers specifically. Is this for people who have been in Castlerea or are people being brought in from across the Irish Prison Service to avail of this and do training etc.? Castlerea is an open prison so is this open to anybody else over the rest of the prison service?

Education is a major problem in the Traveller community and trying to get them on board and engaging is a great difficulty. I wonder how we can encourage some Travellers to engage with the services as there may be a reluctance to do it in certain circumstances. We spoke specifically about women earlier in the likes of the Dóchas centre or such places. It is harder to get them to engage in services than others. Will the witnesses give us some insight into that?

Will the witnesses give us an idea how addiction treatment services in the system work? If somebody has a serious addiction problem, whether alcohol or drugs, how would he or she be treated or dealt with?